A McBaby Story

Well…it’s been years months since I’ve written.  But hey, I have a great excuse!  Michael and I made a baby, and I’ve been carrying it in my belly for the past 12 weeks!  We just told the world on Saturday, so now I can finally blog about it.  I’m going to try to cram everything into this one post, so bear with me.  I apologize if any of my details provide too much information, but I would like to remember everything.

Unlike most pregnant gals, I know the exact date we conceived McBaby.  How is that?  Because in our 7 years of marriage, Michael and I have been meticulous about birth control…except for one time.  On April 18, 2013, we threw caution to the wind, I was certain I had already ovulated, and we thought, “who gets pregnant after just once.”  Trust me, I am eating my words now!  We became part of the “It only takes once” statistic that day, and I would be lying if I told you I didn’t feel stupid at all!

Fast forward just a couple of weeks to Friday, May 4^th.  I had been having common period symptoms for four days, but there was no sign of a period.  Earlier that week, Michael was making dinner, and I remember telling him how awful it smelled to me.  He jokingly teased me that I already had a pregnant nose.  I thought nothing of it, but now it makes sense.  So that Friday, I went to the grocery store to get a few things, and picked up a pregnancy test along with my groceries.  I wanted piece of mind so I could move on because I knew I was not pregnant.  I got home, put up my groceries, and then I took the test.  It quickly showed the negative line, and my anxiety eased.  But as I continued to sit there, the plus sign started filling in, and my heart began to race as the room got fuzzy.  My heart was literally beating out of my chest.  I was not happy, I was not sad, I was shocked.  I think this was the closest to an out of body experience I have ever felt. 

So many women dream of the day they find out they are pregnant and plan elaborate or creative announcements to share the news with their husbands.  There was no time for that.  I picked up the phone, called Michael and said “Guess What?”  He instantly knew, and you could hear a pin drop on the phone line as we both sat there for a second.  I hung up the phone with Michael, and I called my mom.  I don’t really think she knew how to react when I told her.  Her self-proclaimed childfree daughter was calling to say she was pregnant.  She was going to be a grandmother, and I don’t think she knew how to feel.  She barely said anything, but she called me back later and was very excited.

I was four weeks along when I took the test, and it would be four more weeks before we went to the doctor.  These were the worst weeks for me.  I was so anxious, confused, shocked, and sick.  The worst part was that I couldn’t talk to anyone about what I was going through because we decided to keep the news to ourselves until we went to the doctor.   The week we went to the beach for our anniversary was the week I felt the worst.  I was six weeks along, and I physically, mentally, and emotionally was a wreck!  Poor Michael handled it so well though.  The hardest part for me was the fear of being sick, not the actual sickness itself.  I don’t know if that makes sense, but my anxiety tends to make me think catastrophic thoughts, and on my worst days I imagined myself throwing up at work or at a restaurant and being really embarrassed.  I’m glad that part is over, and I am happy to say I survived!!!

I was so nervous before our 8-week appointment, but I love my doctor and her staff.  We felt at ease talking to her, and she calmed all my nerves.  We were so excited during the first ultrasound.  Michael didn’t realize what the flickering was on the screen, and when I told him it was the heartbeat, I think he may have cried!  We went back to the doctor at 13 weeks and had a second ultrasound.  I could not believe how much the baby had grown from a little bean to a fetus with a clearly defined head and arms that were flailing around.  The heartbeat looked strong still.

Every day, this adventure is more real, and I am trying to find my place as a girl who is expecting and will be a mom in less than 6 months.  I never thought this would be me, and I have to pinch myself from time to time.  It was great to finally announce that we were expecting over the weekend because it seems more real now. 

In case you are wondering why we are calling our little one McBaby (I am sure you are smart enough to figure out that McBaby plays off of McGreevey), I want to share that we have decided not to find out the gender before McBaby is born.  I reluctantly agreed to this because Michael has said that he would always want to be surprised if we became parents.  He thinks there will be nothing sweeter than being surprised at McBaby’s birth.  He felt so strongly about this, and I know it makes him happy, so we will refer to our little one as McBaby until he or she enters the world.  Now, I am navigating the gender-neutral world trying to decide how to decorate the nursery.  I have a few ideas that I am excited about.

Today, I am 14 weeks along.  I am feeling good for the most part.  I’m still exhausted, but I wonder if that has to do with the fact that we just moved then traveled to Arkansas for 5 days right after.  I haven’t had a chance to catch up, and it’s driving me crazy to have an unorganized house.  As far as food goes, I don’t really crave anything specifically, but there have been foods I don’t want to eat.  It’s hard for me to eat meat, and I want salty food much more than I want sweet stuff.

Now that I am able to openly talk about McBaby, I plan to blog a lot more.  I really want to capture as much as I can on this journey.

On Eating Flexitarian

FLEXITARIAN...That word makes me laugh...we have to put a label on everything these days I guess.

This week, I planned a flexitarian diet to keep the food experiment going.  This was the plan:  Cook five dinners, have leftovers for lunch, and make smoothies or oatmeal for breakfast.  Sometimes Michael just grabs a piece of fruit as he goes out the door.  I chose five gluten free recipes.  In a very short time, I have come to realize I feel better without gluten in my diet although I occasionally splurge on a sandwich.

I selected five recipes from Gluten Free Goddess.  Let me just say how much I love reading food blogs!  I never have to buy one cookbook again for the rest of my life, and I love reading comments from readers who have tried the recipes.

I have made three of the recipes so far, and they have been easy to follow and have tasted better than I expected.  The Irish potato soup was my favorite!  Food that tastes good, is easy to make, and is good for us makes me happy, but the best part about going flexitarian was the cheaper grocery bill.  Buying less meat and dairy made a huge difference this week.

Three of the five recipes called for meat: White Chicken Chili, Irish Potato Soup, and Quinoa Taco Salad.   I decided to reduce the meat by half, which in turn made me buy a few more vegetables to add to each dish, making the dishes healthier and saving cash.

On a side note, I started adding organic whey protein and secret veggies to our morning smoothies.   Michael likes the protein, but he's not so sure about the spinach :)!

I feel like I have more energy lately.  I've been taking my vitamin D3 and B12 supplements, practicing yoga, and getting more sun.  Yesterday, my body ached a lot, and I was very fatigued, so I don't know what that's all about.  My anxiety levels have been good for the past month, so that's always welcomed news.  I hope I continue to get better, and my efforts will pay off once I go back to the doctor.  

Food Experiments

It's been a while.  There's been a lot going on, but nothing too noteworthy I guess.  Except for the fact that I've become obsessed with what I eat over the past two months.  I don't really like the word obsessed.  Obsessed has a bad connotation, like I'm stalking my food or something, but I think it's true, although this obsession in a good thing.  I've always been interested in nutrition and health and have eaten well I think, but once the fast was over in January and I felt really great, I started out on a journey towards finding the best way to eat for my body and health.  I'm blessed to have a supportive husband who let's me experiment from week to week.  Though I know why he doesn't complain because he has lost weight!  Me, not so much, but I do believe I'm slowly feeling better by finding what foods make me feel best.

Let me share also that I have had some health concerns in the past few months that have made this important as well.  In December, I started having severe anxiety symptoms again, most likely due to winter blues, work stress, and holiday stress.  My doctor quickly put me on anti-depressants, which I hesitantly took for 7 weeks.  I had extreme fatigue, headaches, nausea, insomnia, muscle weakness, and irritability.  When we started the fast, some of these symptoms subsided, and I believe eating no processed foods had a huge impact on my health.  Not to mention, a closer connection to God is always  a cure for my blues, so I don't believe it was just food making me feel better.  But I did feel better, and Michael felt better.  I still experienced fatigue, headaches, and muscle tension while on the fast; however, I was making progress.

After the fast, we introduced meat and dairy back into our diets but kept the sugar and gluten to a minimum.  I started feeling much better getting more B12 and iron.  I began more research and found several success stories with the Paleo diet.  We went from stricter than vegan to paleo, but decided that was way too much meat for human consumption and too expensive to continue.  I felt great on paleo but missed beans and dairy.   We have consistently kept gluten and sugar to a minimum with the exception of a few splurges now and then.  When I eat gluten, I don't have a severe allergic reaction; however, I have a few symptoms that I believe are related to gluten.  My stomach feels full and heavy, my ears itch, my nose gets stuffy, and I develop mucus in my throat - gross and weird huh?   These symptoms aren't horrible enough for me to give up bread or desserts altogether sometimes, but I know that there are other foods that are better for me.  We did buy our first loaf of sourdough bread from Whole Foods this week.  Sometimes I just want a sandwich, and I have read lots of studies that say that gluten intolerant people may be able to eat sourdough bread because the fermentation breaks down the gluten and helps you digest the bread better than if it were wheat or white.  I'm going to try it out, and I hope for good results. We love sourdough bread, so this will be an easy and tasty experiment.

So where has all of this experimentation gotten us?  I think it leads to a flexitarian diet, yep that's a real diet these days.  It's basically a flexible vegetarian diet.  You eat meat, but you eat very little meat.  This is perfect for us.  I like meat and find it beneficial, but grass fed and organic meat can leave your budget busted, and eating too much meat is just not good for you in my opinion.  It can be easily overdone.  We lived strict paleo for two weeks, and we were so sick of meat we couldn't stand it.  We will continue to eat organic and whole - choosing no processed foods if at all possible.

In the midst of all of this, I did find a new doctor who was quicker to listen and slower to write me a prescription.  I was still feeling fatigue, and I wanted to make sure I wasn't deficient in something or I wasn't having symptoms from hormone imbalances or my thyroid.  Thankfully, he ran a full span of blood tests from mononucleosis to celiac disease.  Happily, I'm pretty healthy, but my D3 and B12 levels are astoundingly low, which is most likely the cause of my fatigue, insomnia, and anxiety.  My estrogen was also higher than normal.   I have been supplementing D3 and B12 and watching all soy or processed food intake, which increases estrogen levels.  Luckily, time changed today, which means more sun and more vitamin D!